Since his celebrated first book of poetry, Peter Gizzi has been hailed as one of the most significant and distinctive voices writing today. Gathered from over five collections, and representing close to twenty-five years of work, the poems in this generous selection strike a dynamic balance of honesty, emotion, intellectual depth and otherworldly resonance-in Gizzi's work, poetry itself becomes a primary ground of human experience. Haunted, vibrant, and saturated with luminous detail, Gizzi's poetry enlists the American vernacular in a magical and complex music. In Defense of Nothing is an immensely valuable introduction to the work of this extraordinary and singular poet. Check for the online reader's companion at indefenseofnothing.site.weleyan.edu.

Absolute Zero Cool is a post-modern take on the crime thriller genre. Adrift in the half-life limbo of an unpublished novel, hospital porter Billy needs to up the stakes. Euthanasia simply isn’t shocking anymore; would blowing up his hospital be enough to see Billy published, or be damned? What follows is a gripping tale that subverts the crime genre’s grand tradition of liberal sadism, a novel that both excites and disturbs in equal measure. Absolute Zero Cool is not only an example of Irish crime writing at its best; it is an innovative, self-reflexive piece that turns every convention of crime fiction on its head. Declan Burke’s latest book is "an imaginative story that explores the human mind’s ability to both create and destroy, with equally devastating effects."

One good track could change everything. Just one good track and Rob Lynch can finally quit his suburban teaching job and get his band, the Terrors, once Dublin’s next big thing, the fame and recognition they dream of. But it’s not happening - they need a new sound. When Rob discovers the unique gifts of one of his students, John ‘Kembo’ Pereira, a troubled African teenager with a particular talent for creating beats, he sees an opportunity that might just keep his musical ambitions alive. As Rob and John’s relationship develops, however, a series of disturbing events unfold that will rock both their lives to the core. And when the Terrors start to crumble, Rob finds out just how far he is willing to go, and what he is willing to lose, in order to keep his dream alive. Powerfully capturing the energy, wit and pathos of a changed Dublin society, Beatsploitation gives voice to a cynical, disillusioned generation, caught between the tired values of the old and the uncertainty of the new. An assured, arresting debut by a commanding new talent. It is an innovative and original work of debut fiction and deals with international themes such as racism, economic failure, love, loss, and regret, while highlighting a different side of modern Ireland.

Seán Galvin isn’t like the other children. While they play and laugh and keep on growing up, Seán doesn’t. Instead he does stuff to things. Things like cats and dogs. Bad stuff. Seán has only one friend, the nameless narrator who tells their story. Their young lives revolve around sport and school. That is until Seán finally does something appalling and the boys have no choice but to tell someone. Someone older. Someone they should be able to trust. What they uncover is a secret far more awful than anything Seán is capable of: they witness a murder. Or do they? Because of their previous behavior, no-one believes them. They begin to unravel a rather sinister series of links between people whom they thought they could trust and the person who they saw committing the crime. Their little rural town becomes a place of cold skepticism and barely-hidden conspiracy. But is there really a conspiracy? Accused of being 'freaks', they become more and more isolated, and even Seán starts doubting. But the novel’s increasingly unhinged narrator embarks on a mission to prove that they saw what they saw and his obsession will see their friendship tested to its limits and their lives changed forever.

June, 1940. France is teetering on the brink of collapse. British troops are desperately fleeing Dunkirk. Germany is winning the war. Its next target is Britain... and Ireland. In neutral Dublin opinions are divided. Some want Germany to win, others favor Britain, most want to stay out of the war altogether. In this atmosphere of edgy uncertainty, young lieutenant Paul Duggan is drafted into G2, the army’s intelligence division, and put on the German desk. He’s given a suspected German spy to investigate, one who doesn’t appear to do much, other than write ambiguous letters to a German intelligence post box in Copenhagen. Before Duggan can probe further, however, he is diverted by a request from his politician uncle to try and find his daughter, who’s gone missing, possibly kidnapped. Enlisting the help of witty Special Branch detective Peter Gifford, the two lines of inquiry take Duggan into the double-dealing worlds of spies and politics, and lead him back to a shocking secret that will challenge everything he has grown up believing. An addictive thriller that will keep you glued to the page, right through to its heart-pounding finale.

Harry Rigby likes a smoke, the easy life, and Robert Ryan playing the bad guy in late night black-and-whites. Sweet. But when the wife of a prominent politician is murdered in her best nightie, Rigby finds himself caught in a crossfire between rogue paramilitaries, an internal police inquiry and the heaviest blizzard of coke ever to hit the northwest. If all this wasn’t bad enough, his relationship with girlfriend Denise is on the rocks and he’s hitting the bottle. Then there's Rigby's psychotic brother Gonzo, back on the streets and meaner than a jilted shark. Television rights have been acquired by a UK production company in 2013 for a potential series to be commissioned.

Robbie is a simple man who leads a simple life: he is a husband, a father, and a journalist, living and working in Dublin. However, his carefully crafted life has been interrupted by a phone call from his youngest sister, calling, after years of silence, to say his father is ill, and he should come 'home'. And so Robbie returns to Dromore, Northern Ireland, and to Larkscroft Farm, the place where he grew up and the man he grew up with. In taking care of his father - an often angry, and complex man - Robbie allows the reader into his past, revealing himself as a child, teenager, and young adult, lost in the often tumultuous world of a dysfunctional family. Such insight is rare and privileged as you begin to see that no-one in Robbie’s ‘new’ life knows anything about his past, not even his wife. My Father's House is a real and often raw account of family relationships. In Robbie and in his family there is a myriad of messy, mixed up people, tentatively sewing up the rips and tears on their way to reconciliation. This is a novel about birthplace, family, regret, and new beginnings.

Poets Are Eaten as a Delicacy in Japan opens as 30-year-old Tommie Shaw is shown a newspaper report by her panicked sister Georgie revealing that their mother, Gloria, is set to release a new memoir. What follows is an engaging and rewarding black comedy, as Tommie and Georgie's panic spirals and they clamor to control Gloria while also dealing with the painful legacy of their fatherless childhood. A series of flashbacks to Tommie’s teenage years help to explain her now destructive and out-of-control lifestyle as an adult. Poets Are Eaten as a Delicacy in Japan also tackles heavy subjects, including suicide and self-harm, with a light touch that feels honest rather than glib. Poets Are Eaten as a Delicacy in Japan is the story of a dysfunctional family, but more importantly, about facing fears and moving on.

Harry Rigby is right there, an eye-witness when Finn Hamilton walks out into the big nothing nine stories up, but no one wants to believe Finn is just the latest statistic in Ireland's silent epidemic. Not Finn's mother, Saoirse Hamilton, whose property empire is crumbling around her; and not Finn's pregnant fiance, Maria, or his sister Grainne; and especially not Detective Tohill, the cop who believes Rigby is a stone-cold killer. Welcome to Harry Rigby's Sligo where death comes dropping slow. Studded with shards of black humor and mordant wit, Slaughter's Hound is a gripping noir from one of the most innovative voices in Irish crime fiction. In the twisted moral landscape of his surroundings, Harry must find a way free of his own heartache and pain to discover the truth about Finn’s death and what is really going on…

A gritty black comedy from a talented writer, this is an unconventional love story and an insight into the bleak landscape of post-boom Ireland. Author Christine Dwyer Hickey agrees: 'Dark, often disturbing and utterly absorbing. In The Ballad of Mo & G, Billy Keane has entered a tough world and handled it with great skill and humanity. It is also a love story for our time.' ' Even though I wished it was me she was married to, I was still hoping Mo would be happy ever after with Dermo Olsen. That was until the violence started. I loved her that much. Can you believe that?' Welcome to an unnamed town in the southwest of Ireland, where Mo and G have what could loosely be described as a dysfunctional relationship. Between the sex, beatings, and pining after Mo, there’s barely time for G to worry about his arch-enemies, the Olsens - or their Dobermans. G is plagued by nightmares, and sometimes tries to do the right thing. Very occasionally, he succeeds. In The Ballad of Mo& G, Billy Keane tackles lives lived on the edge with a sharp yet compassionate eye, and a biting black humor. An assured report from Ireland’s dark, post-boom underbelly by a supremely talented storyteller.

A small, touristy, Greek island. Sun. Sea. Sand. The perfect ingredients for a two-week package holiday - getting away from it all, taking a break from the madness. For Rob and Georgie, a young couple in their late twenties, it's a chance to reconnect, spend some much-needed time together during their busy, urban lives. For Michael, a shy, introverted man, stranded alone at the same hotel, after the friend with whom he was supposed to be holidaying returns home unexpectedly, the holiday is a revelation. Georgie feels sorry for Michael and befriends him, chatting to him each morning by the pool, sharing her thoughts and feelings. Rob is somewhat irritated by Georgie's relationship with Michael, even though he seems to be no threat and doesn't bother the two of them particularly. But Michael is increasingly drawn to Georgie. Having had no real experience himself of life or love, he takes Georgie at face value, giving huge weight to her confessions, unaware of some of their nuances and complexities. Unable to understand or deal with his conflicting emotions, and at the mercy of his powerful fantasy life, Michael sets in motion a plan that will have devastating consequences for all concerned. A taut psychological thriller, Travelling Companion is a study of how ordinary people commit appalling acts, and how horrific actions can grow from trivial misunderstandings and from the simple misreading of the signals we unwittingly give to one another.

Throughout history, determined individuals have appropriated and reconstructed rhetorical and religious resources to create effective arguments. In the process, they have remade both themselves and their communities. This edited volume offers notable examples of these reconstructions, ranging from the formation of Christianity to questions about the relationship of religious and academic ways of knowing. The initial chapters explore historic challenges to Christian doctrines and gender roles. Contributors examine Mormon women’s campaigns for the recognition of their sect, women’s suffrage, and the statehood of Utah; the Seventh-day Adventist challenge to the mainstream designation of Sunday as the Sabbath; a female minister who confronted the gendered tenets of early Methodism and created her own sacred spaces; women who, across three centuries, fashioned an apostolic voice of humble authority rooted in spiritual conversion; and members of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, who redefined notions of women’s intellectual capacity and appropriate fields for work from the Civil War through World War II.Considering contemporary learning environments, other contributors explore resources that can help faculty and students of composition and rhetoric consider more fully the relations of religion and academic work. These contributors call upon the work of theologians, philosophers, and biblical scholars to propose strategies for building trust through communication.The final chapters examine the writings of Apostle Paul and his use of Jewish forms of argumentation and provide an overarching discussion of how the Christian tradition has resisted rhetorical renovation, and in the process, missed opportunities to renovate spiritual belief.

Gerald Vizenor weaves an engrossing historical portrayal of Native American soldiers in World War I. Blue Ravens is set at the start of the twentieth century in the days leading up to the Great War in France, and continues in combat scenes at Château-Thierry, Montbréhain, and Bois de Fays. The novel contains many of Vizenor's recurrent cultural themes-the power and irony of trickster stories, the privilege of survivance over victimry, natural reason and resistance. After serving in the American Expeditionary Forces, two brothers from the Anishinaabe culture return to the White Earth Reservation where they grew up. They eventually leave for a second time to live in Paris where they lead successful and creative lives. With a spirited sense of "chance, totemic connections, and the tricky stories of our natural transience in the world," Vizenor creates an expression of presence commonly denied Native Americans. Blue Ravens is a story of courage in poverty and war, a human story of art and literature from a recognized master of the postwar American novel and one of the most original and outspoken Native voices writing today. Check for the online reader's companion at blueravens.site.wesleyan.edu.

Sound of the Ax brings together for the first time over four hundred aphorisms and twenty-six aphoristic poems by one of America’s most essential poets of the twentieth century. Many readers are familiar with the trenchant nature of William Stafford’s poems, with lines such as “Justice will take us millions of intricate moves” and “Your job is to find what the world is trying to be,” but have never had the opportunity to read a sustained selection from the thousands of wise, witty, and penetrating statements he created in over forty years of daily writing in his journal. In keeping with Stafford’s varied interests, the aphorisms in Sound of the Ax explore many topics—war and peace, involvement, aging, appearances, fear, egotism, writing, nature, animals, suffering, faith, living an ethical life, and so on—with his incisive view. The poems are either made up entirely or primarily aphorisms, and range from the well-known “Things I Learned Last Week” to some never before collected. Readers will find much to enjoy and to think about here, and will return over and over to Sound of the Ax for inspiration, pleasure, and wisdom from an author noted for his integrity and mindful living.

Jean Baptiste Chabot, who produced works like Synodicon Orientale, surveys the different branches of the Aramaic Aramaic languages and their extant literature in theology, science, and history, as well as inscriptions at archaeological sites. Chabot demonstrates his expertise in the field, drawing from sources as diverse as the Samaritan Bible and the Talmud, Oriental Christianity, Babylon and Mesopotamia. Originally written in 1910, it will still be of interest to scholars in the fields of Aramaic, linguistics, Syriac studies and Eastern Christianity.

Colloquia of the International Syriac Language Project. These essays offer a probing analysis of selected lexical tools and methods for working with ancient Syriac, Hebrew, and Greek sources, as well as offering reflections on methodological concerns for lexicographical tools of the future.